Here is the first description of Blake, the captain of the Ulysses spaceship heading towards Eden, from the second chapter in the Eden Paradox:
The harsh red flicker from the Ulysses holo reflected off Blake’s rusty hair and chiselled features, lighting up the bow-shaped scar above his right eye from hand-to-hand combat in Thailand, and the pockmarks on his left cheek from the gassing at Geronimo Station. Blake had lost a lot of men in the War, but always got the job done.
Blake is a decision-maker, a man of action, and a soldier, but he has a dark secret that eats away at him in the first book. But he's the kind of man you want around when the shit hits the fan. Here he is when he and his three crew-mates find themselves in a fix on board the Ulysses. They discover there is a ghoster on board. The ghoster chapter that follows this one is probably the most memorable in the book, from what people tell me, because the ghoster is the stuff of nightmares. But Blake carries his own nightmares, and tackles fear head-on...
Code Red
Blake stopped two
metres from the darkened hatchway, fingers flexing near his holstered pulse
pistol. He couldn’t believe it was happening again. He’d lost eighteen men last
time, all about Pierre’s age. Nineteen men, he corrected himself. At the end it
had come down to him and the ghoster, and his intuition told him history wanted
a re-run. The tremors re-surfaced in his right hand, shakes he’d not had since
Kurana Bay. He squeezed his fist hard to stop them.
"The lights are off inside," Pierre said, inspecting
a small panel adjacent to the airlock connecting them to the fourth compartment.
"Since zero-two-hundred, though the cockpit systems said they were on – I
checked an hour ago."
Zack sighed. "And the night goggles would be –
let me guess…" He gesticulated towards the pitch-black porthole in the
airlock hatchway.
Pierre confirmed with a nod.
"Figures," Zack said.
Pierre closed the panel. "As we suspected, whoever
planned this did a good job. The air circulation sensors were looped so we
wouldn’t detect where the oxygen loss was coming from, and the emergency vents
to the fourth compartment were wired open. I’ve sealed them now."
"Good. Both of you, suit up," Blake ordered.
"Arm yourselves as you think fit."
Pierre hesitated. "Sir, reports state that it can
take four days for a ghoster to regenerate after extended hibernation, and the
oxygen depletion started just two days ago. Maybe it’s still comatose, buried inside
one of the food crates?"
"Pierre, forget theory right now," Blake
said, "or you’ll die in there."
Pierre held his ground for a moment then gave in,
following Zack to the weapons locker.
Blake peered through the airlock porthole, but only
saw his reflection. His breathing slowed of its own accord, the way it always
did just before battle.
When they returned, he saw that Zack had retrieved an
item from his personal area. He ignored it. But minutes later, as Zack and Pierre
were donning their standard space-suits and oxygen backpacks, Pierre spotted it.
"Zack, you can’t be serious
taking a commando knife in there? We’ll be in spacesuits and in a vacuum if we
go to Plan B."
Zack grinned, and slipped it into its sheath under his
backpack, hilt pointing downwards. "You never dress commando style?" He
leered at Pierre. "This knife has saved me more times than I care to
remember. Think of it as a good luck charm. You asked how we killed it last
time; well, my knife played its part."
But Blake knew how they had taken out the ghoster in
Kurana Bay – the slow gun. They didn’t have one aboard; why would they? He
switched on Zack’s backpack, three telltale green lights and a single beep
indicating it was fully functional. "Each man takes in what he feels
appropriate."
Pierre bristled. "But plasma pulse rifles, right
– according to procedure?"
Blake finished with Zack’s suit, and
moved to check Pierre’s.
"Actually, Pierre," Zack said,
as he picked up his helmet, "I’m taking a pulse pistol. It’s not that big
a compartment, and if there’s a need to use something, it’ll be close quarters."
"But the rifle charge is more
powerful."
Blake snapped on the switch to
activate Pierre’s backpack – three greens and a single beep. "Pierre, how
many of the people who wrote those standard procedures actually went into
space, or dealt with ghoster combat situations?"
Pierre frowned. "You haven’t
told us what you’re taking in there, Sir, if it comes to that."
Zack laughed, wiry eyebrows stretching
into grey mesh. "Man’s got a point, boss. Care to share?"
He eyed them both. "No."
Pierre hefted his rifle, and shook it in pump action
mode to arm it. It hummed softly. "Sir," he said, swallowing, "this
is my first real combat situation."
Zack spoke as he donned his helmet, muffling his words.
"You’re shitting me, right?" Zack shook his head, settling his "fishbowl",
as he called it. His voice came through clear on the speakers. "Just try
not to shoot me in there, okay? Boss, maybe I should go in alone – seriously."
Blake picked up Pierre’s helmet. "Keep your head,
Pierre, or you’ll lose it." Pierre donned it, and with a click and a sound
like a gulp, it sealed.
He noticed how stiffly Pierre stood, how he held the
rifle like… like so many men he’d sent into battle who’d never returned. He
wanted to go in there first with Zack, but this was about strategy. Most likely
scenario was that the first two who entered died. The third one had to be able
to react fast, see what they were up against, and finish the job. Best credible
scenario was that Kat alone survived, and they stopped the ghoster before it
sabotaged the engines – if they lost the FTL drive, they’d all die in any case,
drifting in space until everything ran out.
He picked up two lanyards and handed them to Zack and Pierre.
"For Plan B, if it’s mobile. Remember,
this ship wasn’t built for a man overboard scenario. Either of you go out the
window, you’re history, so stay clamped at all times."
Kat cut in from the cockpit; Blake had almost
forgotten she’d been monitoring them via intra-vid, listening to everything.
"Captain, telemetry’s set up,
just get some light going in there as soon as possible, I can’t see much from up
here."
"We’ll do what we can. Kat – I want an open
four-way com-line during the entire operation. No unnecessary comms."
There was a pause. "Understood. Open four-way
comms as of now."
He pressurised the inner airlock, then spun the wheel
to open the hatch. "Good luck."
Only Zack nodded acknowledgement. Pierre stepped first
into the airlock chamber. As Zack followed, Blake patted him once on the
shoulder, and sealed the door behind them. There was a sucking sound, a clunk,
then silence. His hand hung onto the airlock wheel. He tried not to think about
last time. He didn’t have to. The pit of his stomach felt like it was in a vice.
He started thinking instead about Plan C.
*
Shoulder-to-shoulder
inside the airlock chamber, Zack heard Pierre’s ragged breathing across the
intercom.
Pierre checked the dials. "Fully pressurised inside
the compartment."
Zack chewed his lip, peering through the small
porthole into the darkness beyond. "Time to check on our guest." He
opened the inner door to the fourth compartment. As it swung open, the light spilled
in from behind them, revealing the outlines of a room ten metres deep crammed
with cylinders, boxes, and crates, all strapped down. It looked just like it
had done twelve hours ago when he’d checked it over. The lattice of harnesses resembled
a giant spider web laid over the contents of the compartment. He stared towards
the far wall, behind which the dark matter engines lay, adding to his unease.
They each took one pace into the compartment and clipped
their lanyard karabiners onto hull eyeholes. Zack’s gaze swept the room, but he
didn’t use the flashlight attached to his left wrist. If there was anything in
here, he didn’t feel like lighting himself up. Pierre’s rifle sighting beam flashed
upward to the escape hatch which was their Plan B – the ghoster-overboard plan,
as Kat had christened it.
"Zack, I don’t see anything." Pierre took a
step forward.
"Wait." Zack squinted through the semi-darkness
towards the crate at the far end of the chamber housing the neutralino
detonator. It was one of two, the other used to start the dark matter ignition after
Saturn, enabling them to get up enough speed to engage the warp shell. This one
was for the return journey. Something was behind the crate. His eyes tracked to
the left, knowing from theory and experience that unaided night vision worked
best if you looked slightly off target. He saw it. His head recoiled inside his
helmet.
"Kat," he said, voice taut. "Tell me what
you see through the internal cameras" He still hadn’t aimed his flashlight,
instead straining his eyes towards the location of the detonator. Her reply
came through, rendered grainier than usual by the voice-com transmitter.
"Not much. I need more light."
When Pierre went to shine his flashlight on the crate,
Zack gripped his forearm.
"Don’t." He was sure now,
though he had a hard time accepting it.
Blake’s voice cut in from outside. "Report. "
Zack let Pierre reply, while he began to think of
tactics to outmanoeuvre what he believed was crouching just behind the
detonator. He still had his hand on Pierre’s arm, and felt Pierre’s body jerk.
"Sir, it… mon dieu." Pierre’s breathing accelerated, bordering on hyper-ventilation.
Then he exhaled deeply.
Zack removed his arm. Good – remember your training, because if you don’t we’ll be dead a lot
faster.
Pierre’s voice was edgy. "I can
see a human head, but… it has no eyes."
Blake didn’t respond. Zack could only imagine how he
was reacting; it was Kurana Bay all over again. He couldn’t remember unholstering
his pulse pistol, but it was in his hand. He ramped it up to maximum. He spoke
in a steady tone. "Don’t move, Pierre. Get ready to fire." He took a
deep breath, as he did before any close-quarter battle. His palms sweated
inside his gloves. He gripped the pistol harder.
"Skipper," he said, "it’s
a ghoster alright, fully awake. Lock us down, seal us in. We’re going to Plan
B."
*
Kat couldn’t see
Blake on her screens. "Captain? Where are you?"
Blake re-appeared, suiting up. "Kat, get on the
comms. Issue Code Red to Earth – at least they’ll know it was sabotage and not
an accident. Fast as you can, then confirm."
Kat cursed as she realised her own
rifle was two compartments away. Not that it would help. She took one last look
at the silhouetted figures of Zack and Pierre, then shifted position and began
typing fast.
She paused, looking
at the letters on the screen. Then she hit the button.
"Captain, the message; it won’t
transmit."
"Slow down, try again."
Pierre cut in. "Kat, wait – don’t
try more than twice. Do you hear me?"
But she’d just hit Transmit
a third time. Large bright red letters on the screen said . The
screen blanked.
She stared at the lifeless screen. She leant back in her
chair, allowing her foot to rise up and then stomp down hard on the dead console.
"Alician mother-fuckers!"
"Kat, what’s happening?" Blake
shouted.
She suddenly felt how small and
defenceless they were, hurtling through a pitiless vacuum, light years from help.
She bit her lip hard.
"It’s dead. It said 'Goodbye,’ then shut down.
It’s the virus." She rammed her eyes closed. Please God, tell me this is just another nightmare. She opened them
as soon as she heard Blake’s voice.
"Kat, listen to me – Zack hotwired an emergency
protocol to disengage navigation, propulsion and life support to a secondary
sub-processor – press the red plunger on Zack’s console – do it now!"
She sprang out of her chair, spotted the plunger, and
slammed her hand down on it. "Done!" She knew without that switch,
the virus would spread to propulsion and navigation within minutes, and they
would disintegrate under obscene torsional forces as soon as they slipped out
of their flight envelope.
"Kat," Blake said. "Salvage as many
secondary systems as you can, but keep an eye on the screens, in case the
ghoster moves."
At first, she didn’t understand – Zack and Pierre
would see it if it did anything – but then she remembered the tales of how
quickly ghosters could move – and kill. "Understood."
*
Blake
sealed his helmet, the familiar muffling sound lending him confidence, shutting
out extraneous noises, allowing him to concentrate. He peered through the
porthole. "Zack. Do you have line of sight?"
Zack’s voice was low but steady. "It’s
right behind the detonator, in front of the reserve oxygen cylinders. One miss
and we’re all dead."
"The detonator – activated?"
Zack sighed. "Was afraid you’d ask
that. I see two red lights, one green. Pierre?"
"There’s only one safeguard
left. A final control command to arm it, then a one-minute countdown. The arming
control is in front of us. If it goes for it we’ll get a clear shot. We caught
it just in time."
Blake leant his gloved hands against
the door. He took three measured breaths. He’d trade their remaining oxygen for
the slow gun. "Options?"
Zack replied with a snort. "Not
many. Plan A, we circle the perimeter. It’ll come out screaming, moving like a
bat, and we’ll probably shoot each other in the crossfire, but maybe we’ll hit
it enough to stop it. Plan B…" he paused. "Pierre?"
"We blow the hatch. The problem
is, ghosters can function for several minutes in a vacuum. If it manages to
anchor itself inside the compartment, it will arm the detonator before we can
react, and defend it until it blows. We need a Plan C, Sir."
"Skipper, he’s right. All we’ll
do is slow this thing down a few seconds. You know they’re practically
unkillable without explosives or industrial lasers. We’re in serious danger of
becoming another fucking Eden Mission mystery."
Blake was only half-listening.
Abruptly he went back to the weapons locker to pick up his Plan C. He secured
the bagel-sized explosive charge with pushbutton actuator – a hand-made land-mine
– to his chest.
*
Inside
the compartment, Pierre spoke, his voice unsteady. "Zack, why doesn’t it
have eyes?"
Zack lodged his flashlight on the floor, not taking
his eyes off the grey-skinned scaly head and neck. He grimaced as he met the dark
sockets where its eyes should have been. His mouth felt dry as sandpaper, but
he tried to reassure Pierre. "It has eyes; they’re permanently open underneath
a protective membrane. They have no weak spots. Makes people hesitate, too, because
it looks blind – got many a soldier killed in the War – not to mention the
scream when they attack. If – when it
moves, just aim for its trunk – don’t look at the face."
"What’s it waiting for?"
He felt sorry for Pierre – his first
real battle experience, and encountering a ghoster was a supernova of a baptism.
He knew Pierre’s instincts would be playing push-me-pull-you between fight and
flight; waiting wasn’t instinctive at all. But if they moved now, they’d have
little chance. He tried to appeal to Pierre’s intellectual side, to help him
keep his nerve.
"Its higher cortical functions are suppressed;
you can’t negotiate with it, and it’ll never question its instructions. A
ghoster’s reptile-brain fighting instincts have been heightened. But it still
has basic tactical abilities. It has a mission, a goal, and is fucking
adaptable. Its goal is to destroy the Ulysses, probably by activating the ND.
But it knows if it tries now, it might fail, because we’ll have clear line of
fire. But if we move first, it’ll strike in fast random attacks. We’ve got
weapons trained on it, so it’s waiting for an advantage."
"Waiting for us to blink?"
"Yeah, you could say that."
But a chill ran down hid spine as he recalled what he’d said earlier – a
ghoster’s eyes were always open behind the membrane – they never, ever blinked.
*
Blake
primed the mine. Him and the ghoster. That’s how it was always going to be. Now
he’d accepted it he felt calmer, the tremors had vanished.
Kat defied protocol. "Not exactly regulation
issue."
He glanced toward the camera and offered
a bare smile. He picked up two pulse rifles and shook them into readiness. "You’re
in charge of the ship now, Kat. Auto-lock the hatch when I’ve gone through. If
I fail…"
"Don’t you worry about me, I have
my pistol." She tried to laugh.
For a moment he wished he’d gotten to know his crew
better. Like all captains, he’d been trained to keep a distance.
"Okay, Zack, Pierre, get ready. I’m coming in.
When the inner hatch opens on your side, the ghoster will see it as an
advantage or a threat. Either way it will attack. Each of you break to your
respective sides and open fire. Leave a pathway open between it and me. No
discussion. I have a little surprise for our guest."
He spun the wheel.
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